John Bennett has revealed that Rangers spent £21m in the summer transfer window as earlier comments from Michael Beale come under the microscope.
The Rangers chairman was speaking after the Ibrox club released their latest accounts, where a marginal £252k profit ensured a second consecutive year with the club’s finances in the plus column.
With player trading very much the buzz term of the moment at Rangers – with a Director of Football appointment imminent – John Bennett was revealed how much the club spent this summer.
Whilst these figures weren’t included in the club’s annual report, John Bennett took the opportunity to provide some clarity with regards this summer’s investment.
“The financial performance, coupled with new investment received last year, allowed the Board to again invest heavily in the Men’s and Women’s squads, and the Stadium,” said Bennett.
A squad investment of £17.5m in the year under review, adds to the £7.5m in the previous year and was supplemented further by £21.0m of spend since the year end, in the summer transfer window.
John Bennett talks Rangers summer spend
Rangers’ sizeable summer spend has been the topic of much debate all season and now John Bennett has provided some clarity.
The club saw a massive summer turnover in the last transfer window where several of Rangers’ most experienced players left either at the end of their contracts or on transfers.
With Allan McGregor, Filip Helander, Scott Arfield, Ryan Kent and Alfredo Morelos all quitting Ibrox at the end of their deals, Rangers also lost Antonio Colak (Parma), Glen Kamara (Leeds United), Fashion Sakala (Al-Fayha) and Ianis Hagi (Alavés, loan) to other clubs.
As a result it was always going to be a sizeable summer of investment at Rangers but the figure of £21m will catch a lot of people by surprise.
Rangers moved for nine senior players in total this summer, with John Bennett’s comments likely relating to a mixture of transfer fees, player contracts and agent costs.
Rangers signed four players on pre-contracts in the summer, with Jack Butland (Cyrstal Palace), Kieran Dowell (Norwich City), Dujon Sterling (Chelsea) and Leon Balogun (QPR) joining the club.
The Gers then spent big on Sam Lammers (Atalanta), Cyriel Dessers (Cremonese) and Danilo (Feyenoord) whilst Jose Cifuentes joined for a fee from LAFC after initially signing a pre-contract.
The club also added Abdallah Sima on loan from Brighton in a costly summer transfer window at Ibrox.
The comments on Rangers’ summer spend have also raised a few eyebrows about Michael Beale’s frustrated response to journalists as his new signings toiled to have an impact.
Claiming that the reported fees involved were “miles out”, the comments of John Bennett certainly appear to contradict Michael Beale before he was eventually sacked at Ibrox.
The Rangers boss claimed at the time the club spent a combined £13m on all nine players.
At the time, friendly journalists also reported that Rangers had a net spend of around £6m in the summer and we’ll need to wait until the next annual report to see the full extent of the last window’s business.
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